EVAT Effects: Taxed to the brink

The expanded Value Added Tax takes effect today.

There is no choice but to accept the added burden as prices of most goods and services will shoot up or have already shot up.

As expected, gasoline and diesel prices in the Philippines has gone up by 3 to 4 pesos. Newspaper reports say that increases would have been higher if oil companies had not rolled back prices by as much as 50 cents.

Expect your Meralco or electric bill to go up.

While GMA's propaganda mill keeps spouting that the tax measures will equate to better services for the poor, I keep wondering what services they are talking about? The 2006 General Appropriations Act or the law that becomes the 2006 National Budget shows that most of the money will go to servicing the growing National Debt and among the Departments eating up the budget, the Department of National Defense gobbles up the biggest slice.

What does that tell me?

Well for one, we aren't working for ourselves anymore... We are working to pay off loans which the current and previous administrations had consummated with foreign powers. Another is that, if we refuse to pay off these loans (the extreme measure is to involve yourself in a revolutionary movement), the government can choose to make you pay the ultimate penalty.

We are being conditioned to be slaves to serve the interests of an elite who bows down to foreign powers.